Today I filed a formal complaint against #YouTube with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner for their illegal deployment of #adblock detection technologies.
Under Article 5(3) of 2002/58/EC YouTube are legally obligated to obtain consent before storing or accessing information already stored on an end user's terminal equipment unless it is strictly necessary for the provisions of the requested service.
In 2016 the EU Commission confirmed in writing that adblock detection requires consent.
It is not up to discussion: Youtube want to serve video to EU user ? They need to follow EU rules. If the rule says that adblocker detection technologies (or attempt) are illegal Youtube has no really a say in it.
Hell yeah they should, I’m not disputing that, but there’s so many here pretending like it’s somehow unethical for Google to fight against ad blockers, and I am arguing that.
But to be clear, that is not what the EU law being cited here says. It says something that may be interpreted as it. I hope that is how it gets interpreted. But that is not what it says.
Google’s main source of income is ads across the board, so fighting adblockers is certainly in their best interest
And users blocking all ads as long as Google is illegally tracking their online movement is in their best interest as well.
Fine. But it need to fight by the rules.
It is not up to discussion: Youtube want to serve video to EU user ? They need to follow EU rules. If the rule says that adblocker detection technologies (or attempt) are illegal Youtube has no really a say in it.
Hell yeah they should, I’m not disputing that, but there’s so many here pretending like it’s somehow unethical for Google to fight against ad blockers, and I am arguing that.
It it not unethical what they are doing but how they are doing it. Not to mention against the law.
But to be clear, that is not what the EU law being cited here says. It says something that may be interpreted as it. I hope that is how it gets interpreted. But that is not what it says.